Almost all passenger transport vehicles have exterior lights. They are provided for a wide variety of different purposes, such as for allowing the passengers and/or operators to view the outside, for passive visibility, for signalling purposes, etc. In the aircraft industry and other fields, exterior lights are highly regulated in terms of the light intensity distributions that are emitted from the lights. For some exterior lights, it is desired and/or required by regulations to have high emission intensities in particular output regions or directions, such as particular output planes. In previous approaches, achieving said high emission intensities in particular output directions has resulted in large optical structures and light units.
In the exemplary field of aircraft, many exterior lights are arranged on the exterior of the aircraft fuselage or on the wings. These lights often add weight and power demand in undesired places. Further, many of these lights must be in locations where they can be seen from many angles, sometimes resulting in light positions that are disadvantageous in terms of the aerodynamics or other design goals of the aircraft.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to reduce the size of exterior light units needed to achieve the respective design goals in terms of light intensity distributions. Further, it would be beneficial to provide an aircraft with such improved exterior lighting.